Hyderabad in a ‘messy’ situation

Hyderabad streets are in a mess virtually with garbage heaps all over after 25,000 odd outsourced employees of the GHMC joined in a state-wide strike that entered second day on Tuesday demanding hike in wages and other benefits. Photo: Mohammed Yousuf

Garbage got piled up and roads remained unswept for the second successive day on Tuesday as the GHMC workers too joined the State-wide municipal outsourced workers’ stir demanding better wages.

With more workers’ unions joining the agitation on Tuesday , the sanitation works got crippled and an estimated 7,000 tonnes of garbage which should have been shifted to dump yards in the last two days (3,500 tonnes a day), remained unattended in the city.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Employees Union (GHMEU) which joined the stir said all its 14,000 members stayed away from their assigned works which included street sweeping, transportation and entomology.

“We are demanding the wages to be hiked from Rs. 6,700 to Rs.16,500 as against the other unions’ demand for a hike to Rs.12,500,” said union president U. Gopal. Abstaining from work, the outsourced workers stayed put at the GHMC office while the garbage lifting and shifting vehicles remained parked at their yards.

Around 16,000 workers engaged in sweeping along with 2,500 plus workers in transport wing and another 2,000 involved in malaria control works are also part of the agitation.

Later in the night, some of the unions temporarily called off their State-wide agitation but the GHMC unions decided to continue. Both the BMS general secretary, Vinay Kapoor, and GHMEU president U. Gopal said they will continue the agitation till their demands were met.

Slideshow

Traffic got disrupted and main thoroughfares turned into canals due to a sudden unseasonal downpour in Hyderabad on Monday afternoon. The Hindu lensman Mohammed Yousuf captures the travails of commuters.